Month: June 2020

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Grow Your Author Mind

June 10, 2020-It’s crucial to have a mindset that allows you to grow as an author, and this attitude of continual learning will be imperative to your success! Ask yourself these five questions each day to stay on track and within a growth mindset.

1) What did you learn from today’s writing? E.g. I learned that I need to do more research about the topic I’m writing about in order to add credibility to my work.

2) What steps did you take to make yourself successful today? E.g. I wrote an entire chapter as soon as I got up in the morning and I didn’t check my phone for one hour while I was writing.

3) What are some different strategies you could have used during your writing to overcome any obstacles you faced? E.g. I could have shut the door to my office and disabled all Facebook notifications so that I wouldn’t get distracted.

4) How did you keep going when things got tough? E.g. I wrote myself into a corner and had to restart a chapter. I wrote complete garbage, but I reminded myself that writing anything is better than nothing.

5) What did you learn from any setbacks today? E.g. I learned that I need to be more disciplined in my writing, that I need to remove distractions, and that what matters most is getting words on the page.

If you ask yourself these five questions every day, you can’t help but succeed! Happy Writing! X LLB

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The Lost Art of Letters

June 8, 2020– This Ted Talk from Lakshmi Pratury is about the lost art of letter writing. Do you write letters anymore? You should! Check out the video below:

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Multi-Tasking Myth

June 3, 2020-What are you doing while reading this post? Maybe checking social media, drinking coffee, talking on the phone? According to Wikipedia, Human multitasking is an apparent human ability to perform more than one task, or activity, at the same time. An example of multitasking is taking a phone call while driving a car. Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. If one becomes proficient at two tasks, it is possible to rapidly shift attention between the tasks and perform the tasks well/proficiently.

Let’s do a test to see if we can prove that multitasking is a time-waster. You’ll need a pen and a piece of paper.

Instructions: We are going to write out the word multitasking, one letter at a time. BUT, each time we write a letter, we will write a number underneath. For example, write the M first and then the number 1 underneath. Switch back and forth.

M  U  L  T  I T A S K I N G

1  2   3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

How long did that take? A lot longer than it should have. Now, if we simply write the word multitasking and, when completed, write the corresponding numbers underneath, we’ll be more efficient, and two things will be completed much more quickly when we focus on one thing at a time.

If you’re working on your novel, answering emails, talking on the phone and listening to a podcast, I urge you to stop! Do one thing at a time until it’s finished, or you’ll spend more time on tasks than you need to, and you’ll never get anything done. Another thing to remember is that time doesn’t always equal quality. You can spend a year on a novel, and it can be complete garbage whereas you could spend three months on a novel and it could be a best-seller, the point is, your reader doesn’t care about how long it took for you to write the book, only that it’s well written and well developed. Well written and well-developed books come from preparing beforehand. What’s that old saying? If you had 6 hours to cut down a tree, you should spend 4 of those hours sharpening your axe.

Stick to one thing at a time, prepare well, and you’ll be shocked at what you can accomplish. X LLB

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The OHIO Method

June 1, 2020– Have you heard of the OHIO method? Did you know that this way of doing things can increase your productivity by 80 percent?

The OHIO method stands for Only Handle It Once. A lot of the time, we go around in circles trying to multi-task and completing things on our to-do list that aren’t really that important. Here’s how you can improve your writing life and publishing business by sticking to this simple principle:

  1. Chunk into groups. If it takes 2 minutes or less to complete, do it right away. For example, emails, social media status updates, scheduling meetings, paying a bill, or rebooking a client, taking 2 minutes to deal with these things will ensure that you only handle it once.
  2.  Prioritize big tasks. If you’re writing a novel, you know how difficult it can be to start writing and to continue to write long after the spark and ideas have gone. But, it’s essential to keep going and finish what we start as authors. What is the most significant task that you have today to write your novel? Is it outlining? Perhaps it’s character development or plot lines, whatever it is, choose the most important and get to work. Remember, this is not about editing, it’s about getting words onto the paper at this point. By doing this, you only handle it once, and you can go back later and refine your work.
  3. Set limits. The OHIO method is a great time saver because it frees up our options. I do this with my illustrators- every Friday like clockwork, they give me a progress report. This lets me know what they’re doing and how things are moving along and how close we are to completion on projects. By setting limits on when you’ll respond to emails or when you have staff meetings, this allows you to utilize your time more effectively and only handle it once.

The OHIO method works great once implemented, and you’ll realize that you have more time for the things you need to do and want to do.

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